I decided on the yarns for my Color Affection, drawing somewhat on a suggestion from my mother. She thought reds and oranges, like in a sunset, would fit the bright color combination I was looking for.

Rudi and I pulled out a bunch of my yarns tonight and decided on three. One is a merino-nylon blend in a cranberry color, one a merino-tencel blend in wild rose (a cheerily bright pink that borders on neon), and the third a merino-mulberry silk blend in a purple that a bunch of online vendors refer to as Italian plum.

I apparently cannot, however, follow a simple pattern while watching an engrossing performance like the Opening Ceremony, because I screwed up the pattern in the third row and continued merrily and wrongly along for the first inch or so. Also turns out that I correctly suspected that the needle called for wouldn’t give me gauge. That’s not usually a problem when you’re knitting something like a shawl, but, in my case, it would have meant I ended up with a smaller wrap than I was hoping for. So messing up so early on turns out to be a blessing.

I look forward to casting back on tomorrow with a needle one size up to see if that’s enough to fix it. I hope it will be, but I’ll measure early to verify. We’ll consider this our first heat — not placing first, but enough to carry on.

As you know, the Olympics begin on Friday, which means that I have slightly less than 48 hours to figure out my knitting project to work on during the Games.

As with every Olympics since 2006, knitters, crocheters, weavers, and spinners around the world will begin a new project or pick up a long-lingering one with the intention of completing it before the torch is extinguished at the end of the closing ceremony.

The first time this massive knit-along was conducted it was known as the Knitting Olympics — a brainchild of the Yarn Harlot. In 2008 and 2010, the field of play expanded to include crochet and moved to Ravelry, where we dubbed it the Ravelympics. This year, due to a cease-and-desist order from the U.S. Olympic Committee (accompanied by a poorly thought out letter that ended up eliciting a slew of bad press before an apology was issued for the wording), the knit-along once again has changed names. We have henceforth dubbed it the Ravellenic Games.

I already have the project I’m going to work on picked out. I’m going to knit a Color Affection shawl.

What hasn’t been decided is what colors to make it with. I’d like to use up some of the yarn I already have on hand, as it calls for three skeins of sock weight yarn, and, frankly, I have a lot of sock weight yarn. My solid/semi-solid choices are decidedly more restricted than would be my variegated options, but I think I like the way a one-color yarn works more than a multi-colored one in this instance. And I’m not above a trip to the yarn store to supplement the stash, but I’d like to rule out what’s at home first.

Normally I’d go for three bright colors — probably blue, green, and purple — but the completed shawls on Ravelry [apologies if you can’t access that link] suggest that picking at least one neutral/dark might make for a more striking accessory. Unsurprisingly, neutrals are few and far between in my stash (and life), so if I go that route, I’ll likely need to hit the store.

So, if it were you making/buying this shawl, what colors would you pick? Leave a note in the comments to help a girl out.

Back at the end of May, on the final day of Sock Madness, I finished this pair of socks from earlier in the competition.

But it took me a while to block them (dry them in a stretched out fashion to even out the stitches), and then even longer to photograph them.

They are knit using the mosaic technique, which means that although the socks are knit using two colors of yarns that you are never actually knitting both colors in the same row. On one row you knit all the stitches that are supposed to be in one color (red, for instance) and you slip from one needle to the next all the stitches that are supposed to be in the other color (white, in this instance).

So while this isn’t fair isle knitting, it is still colorwork and, as such, these are my first finished colorwork objects.

Mosaica, knit with Shibui in ivory and Koigu in P607 and P602 (two very similar but slightly different colorways) with 2.75mm needles.

I finished the first sock of the latest round of Sock Madness this evening. I’m about a third of the way through the second sock, but only three slots remain for our team. I suspect I will be knocked out by mid-day tomorrow (okay, technically today, but you tell time your way and I’ll tell time my way). And either way — advancing or ending my competition — I’m okay with it. I’ve knit some great socks, and this colorwork technique — mosaic knitting — is totally new to me. So it’s a win all around.

Anyway, I’m turning in for a little shut-eye before we head off to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival in a few hours. I’d hate to doze off during the sheepdog demonstrations!

I meant to post yesterday, but our internet was giving us fits, so walking away from the computer seemed a far saner idea.

A quick update on things:

• I finished a book on Friday. It’s the first book I’ve finished since February. Pathetic? Yes.
• I planted potatoes at the garden this weekend. Fifteen starts each got chopped into at least two pieces, often more. I’m hoping that makes for a generous crop.
• We went to our first baseball game of the season. Rick Ankiel, the center fielder, had the most impressive throw home I may have ever witnessed in person. It was like he and home plate were having a game of catch. A throw to be remembered. Plus, the Nats won.

• Sock Madness round 3 has begun. That means I knit everywhere. As opposed to when it’s not Sock Madness time and I merely knit nearly everywhere.

• I watched the space shuttle fly past D.C. yesterday. A post about that is forthcoming. Truly and surprisingly moving.
• I wrote a blog post for work that I was really proud of. (I love having written something well, which, sadly, is why you get a lot of lists like this right now, because I don’t want to spend the time and energy required to write good posts. This is a reflection on me, and not on you.)
• My volleyball team won all four games last night. We found a groove and communicated well, and it just felt right. It was nice.

That is all for now.

While up in Connecticut this weekend, I prevailed upon Rudi to head out into my parents’ yard and take a few shots of my recently finished pair of socks.

These are Frick-n-Frack:

One was knit toe-up. The other knit top down. I started with Frick, which took me a week to knit. I am particularly slow knitting toe-up socks, so I figured it would be smart to start with my weaker skill.

I was confident that I’d have no problem making up time with Frack, since it was knit top-down, but I underestimated how quick my teammates would be in filling the quota for the next round.

By the time I finished Frick, completed socks were rolling in every few hours, and those of us still knitting were feeling a bit of a panic. By Sunday night, there were four spots left and more than that number of knitters within sight of the goal.

I stayed up all night knitting — or at least, I stayed up until I started making dumb mistakes and then I took a 90-minute nap. Refreshed, I started back up again. The body of the sock was done before I left for work, and the toe and heel were finished after lunch, allowing me to nab the very last spot for this round of Sock Madness.

Relevant info: The yarn is Happy Feet in the boringly named colorway #4. The feet were knit on 2.5mm needles; the legs on 2.75mm. Frick took me a week to knit. Frack took me less than a day-and-a-half.

Toe up or top down, though, they are a very cheerful pair of socks and a nice addition to my wardrobe.